PNW MQG Meetup

This last weekend the Pacific Northwest Modern Quilt Guild Meetup was held right here in Seattle, hosted by the Seattle Modern Quilt Guild. This is an annual event, with locations rotating between Portland OR, Vancouver BC, and Seattle. I had only been to 1 meetup before, in Portland, in 2013. This year, 11 PNW guilds were represented - isn't that cool?

Our weekend started with a potluck on Thursday night at Ravenna Park, where we got acquainted, swapped buttons ala QuiltCon, sat around hand-stitching, and even had sew and tell. It was a fine beginning.

Friday there were a couple of tours offered - 1 to Martingale Publishing, and the one I went to at Clothworks. Ted Hoffman, CEO, led us on a tour of the facility followed by a presentation on their American Brand Made Cotton Solids fabric. It was really interesting and we all went home with ABM color cards - yay.

Clockwise starting from left: AMB Cotton Solids; with Ted are Allison/allisonsews, our SMQG Vice President of Programming and Kristen/kristenballou, our guild President; my "backseat drivers" and I: Michelle/goldogmom, Ruth, & Marcie/bikeham33

I missed the Happy Hour Shopping Party at Drygoods Design, but doesn't that sound fun? That evening a group of us ventured out to Kidd Valley for burgers and conversation, and back at the hotel, there was a mixer, including a composition book swap. I didn't participate, but sure enjoyed seeing the workmanship.

Rachel/liketosew, Rachel/snippetsofsweetness, Michelle/goldogmom, me, Louise/imfeelincrafty

Saturday was sew-in day and the room was packed! Read: crowded and deafening. But we squeezed together and sewed the hours away. I mostly worked on a geometric sewing machine, using the pattern by Quiet Play. I'll share that yet this week. There was also a demo by Lysa Flower from the Fraser Valley Modern Quilt Guild on her Match Needle Book, with supplies provided by Circa 15 Fabric Studio. We all got kits to make our own, and it's great the you, too, can find the tutorial on Lysa's blog.

Becca/velouria73, Louise/imfeelincrafty, me, Rachel/snippetsofsweetness, Rachel/liketosew

 

I got to try a new-to-me restaurant for lunch, Evolution Fresh. Besides being really healthy stuff, it was unique in that you can have your menu choice as a salad, soup, or a wrap. Same basic ingredients presented 3 ways. Plus there were handcrafted juices, and I found it all really tasty.

Oh, and one really special feature of our meetup was that Island Quilter came and provided a pop-up shop for us! Shop hops were an opportunity each day of the meetup, and that was great, but having Island Quilter in-house was uber convenient and fun.

Anyway, we sewed all day Saturday, met more new quilty types, and basically just hung out. We also made charity blocks - improv forest blocks with Modern Solids supplied by In the Beginning Fabrics in beautiful northwest hues. Late in the day, my sewing table finished up with a delicious dinner at Din Tai Fung Dumpling House. We had a crazy long wait to get in, but boy were those dumplings delish! Good to know!

 

group blocks above, my blocks below

Wendy/wweathers, Rachel/liketosew, Rachel/snippetsofsweetness, Louise/imfeelincrafty, 

Last on my list as far as meetup events went was on Sunday, when I headed out to Quilting Mayhem in Snohomish, where SMQG member Allison Dutton was doing a demo on freezer paper paper-piecing. It was good to see her technique, and I definitely want to try it. You can too, as she has a post about it on her blog.

Allison/allisonsews

Last but not least, there were awesome swag bags, thanks to our generous sponsors: American Made Brand, Andover, Aurifil, Bernina of Renton, carolina patchworks, Circa15, Connecting Threads, Gathering Fabric, In the Beginning Fabrics, Jaybird Quilts, Martingale, Massdrop, Nancy’s Sewing Basket, Pacific Fabrics, Pile O'Fabric, Quality Sewing, Quilting Mayhem, Quilt Now, Quilt Sandwich Fabrics, Robert Kaufman Fabrics, Sassafras Lane Designs, Schmetz Needles, Sew Fabulous, Sew Sweetness, and Timeless Treasures. Wow. That's pretty amazing!

 

And a huge shout-out to our guild board for all they did to make the meetup successful: Kristen/kristenballou, Allison/allisonsews, Martha/onceawingnut, Megan/quiltygoodness, and Kate/whatatangle. All weekend we used the Ig hashtag #EPICMeetup2015, so glance there if you want to peek in on more of the fun!